Kosher Coke: How An Atlanta Rabbi Started a Passover Tradition

It took an Atlanta rabbi joining forces with executives at the world's top beverage company. But thanks to the tenacity of Rabbi Tobias Geffen — and that of his thirsty congregation — observant Jews can sip Kosher Coca-Cola during Passover.

If the slogan, "Things go better with Coke," holds water, matzah bread and Coca-Cola make excellent bedfellows. But that catchphrase wasn't part of the Coca-Cola lexicon until the 1960s. In the 1930s, the decade in which Rabbi Geffen began his soft-drink crusade, The Coca-Cola Company promoted its flagship product as “America's Favorite Moment.”

At the time, millions of migrants to the United States were immersing themselves in every American moment, their children demonstrating their assimilation through bottles of Coca-Cola.

So devoted was that generation to the consumption of Coca-Cola that Rabbi Geffen, who served Atlanta's Congregation Shearith Israel for 60 years, endeavored tirelessly to find a way to permit its presence on the Passover table.

According to Rabbi Geffen's Teshuva Concerning Coca-Cola, housed in the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society, denying Jews the beloved beverage during Passover was an “insurmountable problem.” The rabbi determined there was no other course of action but to lobby Atlanta-based Coca-Cola to offer a Kosher version of its flagship drink.